Why that psychotic Puerto Rico joke could be Trump's Comey letter
Suddenly, America is forced to remember what Trump would do to them
First of all, it would be very funny.
It would be undeniably hilarious if an objectively terrible yet racist joke cost Donald Trump the presidency. Karma itself could not conceive of a better way to deny this ill duce the “Get Out of Everything” card that he—and the Republicans on the Supreme Court—imagine the presidency to be.
So, I must admit that my desire to see Trump lose in this particularly hilarious way is fueling my confirmation bias. And if you’re reading a guy who calls himself “L O L G O P,” you have to expect a thick underbelly of honest bias. But there are actual, good reasons to believe that Trump, who was definitely always going to lose the popular vote by millions and millions, may just have cost himself the Electoral Vote by hosting a Nazi Open Mic Night at Madison Square Garden as a premature victory lap.
I’ll leave the actual, good reasons to messaging mastermind Anat Shenker-Osorio and Mike Madrid, a GOP-political-advisor-turned-Lincoln-Project-guy who lays out the case from a Latino perspective focusing on Pennsylvania. Dan Pfeiffer and The F*cking News also do an excellent job looking into the numbers and big picture here.
Instead, I’m going to focus on what I see as the closest historical analogy—the letter Jim Comey sent to Congress suggesting that the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s “emails” had reopened.
So let’s start with the similarities, beginning with one that I think even the MAGA-est MAGA in the MAGA would have to grant me. Timing.
Comey’s letter was sent on October 28th, 2016. That psychotic joke about Puerto Rico was the cherry on top of Trump’s Nazi Sundae at his Sunday rally on October 27th, 2024. Similar dates! Just try to deny it.
So why does that matter? People are paying attention.
You’ve probably been obsessed with the political news about the 2024 election since January 7th, 2021. Meanwhile, that last slice of America who will vote and decide this election just began to tune in a week or so ago, just because you can’t open a device or a mailbox without a reminder.
These are wildfire conditions. Disgust and fury blow hard. Right now, there are sizzling embers in every direction.
The second thing this “joke” has in common with the Comey letter is that it’s basically a match destined to light a wildfire.
What was Comey’s letter even about? In retrospect, nothing. It’s not even worth reviewing what it was about. It told us nothing. But it reminded us of everything.
You probably remember this image:
American commentator Christopher Michael Cillizza will tell you that this means Hillary Clinton has a huge “email problem.”
What it actually tells you is that propaganda works, especially when the vast corporate media—from CNN to Fox Business 3—ceaselessly amplify that propaganda with help from the entire Russian government and FBI.
That empty signifier of a letter confirmed every bias about Hillary Clinton that had ever been biased by anyone in the last 30 years, from Rush Limbaugh to Bernie Sanders. Let’s be honest. Most of the bias was on Rush’s women-hating end of the spectrum, but some, like Bernie’s, centered around her representing the worst of buckraking, compromise politics.
It mainly was bullshit, even the more factual stuff. It held Hillary to a standard that had never been applied to any other major party (male) candidate, something I tolerate from a Bernie, under protest, but no other man on earth.
That’s where the similarities end. As you know, Trump has been held to standards so low they need a sump pump. And this always annoys liberals, but he’s also very good at this. What is “this?” Using his relentlessness to talent for targeting vulnerabilities in the psyche and culture of (male) America to lower our standards.
Just last week, I posted a conversation I had with Ian Haney López, the author of DOG WHISTLE POLITICS and MERGE LEFT, where we were lamenting two things:
- The escalating racist rhetoric of Donald Trump and JD Vance had veered so close to racial slurs that it lacked nearly all plausible deniability, which has been a core of strategic racism since George Wallace.
- The lack of anyone new in our society to call out Donald Trump’s racism.
I’m pleased to say that I had never considered the correct answer: Bad Bunny.
This obviously racist joke, which is the headline of this obviously racist rally as Trump is proposing the most obviously racist and largest mass deportation in modern American history, says nothing. But it reminds us of everything.
It reminds us of the way Trump tortured and taunted Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria instead of offering anything resembling steadying leadership. It reminds us how he couldn’t even say “Puerto Rico” without mocking the island's suffering.
It reminds us of the 1939 Nazi and 1968 George Wallace rallies at Madison Square Garden. It reminds us of eight years of abuse of immigrants, accusing them of horrific crimes and violence of the sort that a jury of Trump’s peers found Trump had committed. It reminds us of the endless and meaningless division, distractions, and deceit that has been heaped into our lives just so this man can fill the massive hole in his soul and bank account. It reminds us that he only gets away with this amoral abuse of our goodwill because the worst polluters and rent seekers on earth would rather have Trump feel like their daddy than face a functioning democracy that might make them feel slightly less wealthy or white.
It reminds us that he’ll come after us and our health care again as soon as he has a chance because that’s what the black hole inside a man who offers us psychotic jokes like this demands.
Of course, I could be wrong. It’s very possible it could be another one of Trump’s endless false deaths where predictions of his premature demise only make him stronger with the guys who love him most. And that would be bleak. No doubt.
But timing is everything in comedy. And politics.
We’ve had eight years of a psychotic joke punching down on us. I’m ready for an actual punchline. It should be that guy who thinks he’s destined to rule us forever who gets laughed off-stage.
